1317 Tasting Notes

Green moods don’t last long when you discover that the green you made wasn’t the green you wanted. I was packing up tea samples for Jillian and Bethany (if she’s still interested), and spotted this tin and decided I was really in an oolong mood now instead.

Mostly because whenever I see this tin I have to take the lid off for a couple of sniffs. Yummy.

I can definitely see myself stocking up on this again when it’s gone and I’m beginning to dread the day when it is.

I’m in a green mood, so I grabbed this tin and made me a pot. Now that I’ve taken the first couple of sips, I suddenly remember that I also own a rather nice Chun Mee, and I’d actually rather have had a pot of that.

sigh

It’s probably just as well, because I have discovered that I didn’t rinse the pot out properly before brewing. My gunpowder has gained a weak note of liquorice root from yesterday’s Black Satin.

Interesting, actually. It adds an element of surprise to it. ‘Ahhh green tea… wait, what’s that?’ If I had any liquorice root, it might be fun to experiment with.

This is the first decent cup of tea I’ve had AAAAAALLDAY! First there was the bagged stuff in the travel mug, then there was the taste of Ceylon Pekoe which had been forgotten and steeped for some 2½ *cough*hours*cough*. Yuck oh yuck oh double yuck! Made a new pot of that, nearly forgot that too so it got ten minutes, but it was somewhat drinkable and I made do with it.

Now I’m home, I’ve had dinner and I’ve had dessert. Now I want tea. I saw the label on the tin among the many tins on the table and thought, “Yes!”

The more I have of this, the more the liquorice root is coming out. I think I’ll give the rating an itty bitty push upwards.

Not liquorice as in the sweets, but liquorice root. Have you ever chewed liquorice root? I used to buy that now and then as a child instead of sweets. It’s a funny sort of flavour. You can’t find it on your tongue really and anything but a sort of dusty, slightly sweet and wooden flavour. And then when you swallow it’s more of a feeling on your soft palate rather than an actual flavour.

It was a reflex. Some teas hold up okay if oversteeped so I almost always try a sip to test it. It’s such a habit to do so by now that I do it even when it’s a tea that I know perfectly well will be ruined.

I couldn’t let Mike stew in uncertainty for too long. And I was curious as to what this would be like when it hadn’t been ruined. So I made a small pot and carefully carefully timed the steeping with the kitchen timer.

The aroma was pretty much the same. Sweetly spicy, sort of, with the fennel note. And a note of pepper too. I nabbed a small moutful of it plain and the first thought I had when I tasted it was… soap. Spicy soap. A bit sweet too, a sweetness just exactly out of reach, but mostly soap. I’m struggling really hard to not find such a negative word, but I can’t. I’m not entirely certain I’d like pumpkin pie if I was ever presented with it.

On recommendation from several people, I had the rest with a bit of milk.
That helped! It took the odd note off the aroma. It was pretty much the same, just toned down. I liked the taste a lot better too. The soapiness dissappeared. The milk did get a slightly sour note, which was definitely not because it was getting bad because I tested it first.

While I was at it, I tried adding a bit of cane sugar too. That was nice too. I don’t know if maybe I’m just drowning out the flavour this way, but for me this works.

Not completely, I liked the Black Satin. :)
Don’t feel bad, I wasn’t showing all that much thought in my choices. Dates that I already knew I didn’t like (I was just hoping that it would be a texture thing) and pumpkin that I had no clue whether or not I’d like. Not very smart, really. But don’t worry, I’m totally not scared away. :)

It’s been a while since I had this, but I bought a cup for the trainride home today as a reward for having walked from the hospital to the train instead of taking the bus. I need to get better at doing that again, I’ve just been lazy about it lately.

It’s been so long since I had one that I was suprised by the sweetness of it when I first took a sip. It was nice though, and I keep liking it more.

I noticed today that they now also seem to have two other David Rio chais available, bringing it up to five to choose from. Including a green one that I’ll have to try sometime, mainly because I have the hardest time imagening how that would work out…

Today, though, I’d been thinking about this all the way as I walked, so I couldn’t very well try something else.

(Travelling Teaboxers, don’t forget to sign up before Dec. 31st by sending me your address at [email protected]. There are guidelines for the box in the Travelling Teabox thread in the forum.)

I gave up on the pumpkin thing. It was no use, I’d ruined it. Obviously it didn’t handle oversteeping very well.

So we’re taking this one. The one that I know what’s like and is a known like. I think I’ll try it with a touch of milk for the liquorice this time because it’s a known fact that a handful of liquorice and a glass of milk goes hand in hand. We shall see if this is also true for liquorice root.

YIPPIEEEEEE! I BOUGHT A STEEPSTERSELECTITEM! Now that that’s out of my system here’s the confession. I haven’t got the first clue what pumpkin tastes like. Or smells like. Or anything. Pumpkin pie even less. In Denmark we get little bitty pumpkiny things for decoration in variating colours and shapes and big ones that people make pumpkin lanterns out of. It’s not something we really eat a whole lot of.

Therefore I’m not particularly concerned when everybody seems to complain about their various pumpkin pie teas not tasting all that much like pumpkin. Because… I wouldn’t know anyway. After the vanilla date debacle this probably ought to worry me a bit. I mean, what if it turns out I don’t like pumpkins at all?

Well, the smell of the leaves is sort of dark. It’s a dark smell. I can find the cinnamon but mostly it’s dominated by this other smell that I don’t know how to describe. Kind of spicey but not. Sweet but not. I’m reminded a bit of fennel which I suspect I shouldn’t, but it’s the closest I can get to a description.

It brews up a sort of dark golden. A bit like a dark liquid honey. The aroma is a bit like the loose leaves, but the tea itself is shining through, making the whole thing sweeter, less spicy (but not) and less of the fennel.

Okay, I oversteeped this a bit, I think. It’s got a very notable astringency like Indian black teas tend to get if you overdo it. I can’t figure out how to rate it because of this, as it’s difficult for me to look away from it.

I’m not going to give it a rating yet. I think I’ve ruined this pot. sigh Oh poot!

I think pumpkin is a sort of elusive, slightly sweet flavor. So people tend to associate it more with the spices and creamy flavors used to dress it up and the actual flavor of pumpkin is a little disappointing compared to expectations.

Mindala, I did see a recommendation of trying it with milk, which expect would bring out the creamy flavour that you were talking about. Something elusive and slightly sweet, yeah I can recognise that. Especially in the smell. I’ll definitely have to try it again (properly) later on.

Mike, LOL, what am I, a tv-series? :p
I’ll try not to ruin it next time.

JI have eaten what we call a squash in Danish, but Lexitus tells me that’s not really a squash at all but a courgette. Vegetable confusion! Bit like grape fruits and grapes and the word grape = grape fruit in Danish.

I’ve only tried this a few times since getting it, but my opinion of it is growing favorably. I added milk on time #2, but I think it washed out the flavor a bit too much. I’ll need to drink it again while logging to get a better idea of where it stands with me.

Five down, four to go! Yup, I have been christmas present shopping. These were all the easy presents, to the people who are usually difficult to buy for. But this year I have actually been supplied with wish lists. For! The! Win!!! I guess my grandfather wasn’t about to risk a repeat performance of last year where he got three copies of the same book.

When I was about halfway done I passed a cafe and sat down for a cup of tea and a yummy yummy chocolate orange cake. If ever there was a spongecake rating website, I’d give that one at least a 95.

This tea was a bad choice though. Oh the TEA was just nice. Very jasmine-y aroma and a surprisingly light brew. I thought it tasted pretty good, and was for once pleasantly surprised by Kusmi. They’re better than your average teabags for sure, but I’ve always felt that Kusmi was generally just the teensiest bit overrated. I liked this one, though. It could have had a better balance between tea and jasmine as the majority of the flavour was jasmine, but it could definitely have been so much worse too.

It’s just a shame that it was a far too delicate tea to go with the cake I had chosen. :/

Oooh, interesting. I’ve had the same problem with eating and tea! I’ll think to myself, I want THAT! And then I’ll sit there eating my choice and wincing because what I’ve chosen doesn’t go at all with my tea. :(

And I haven’t heard the best about Kusmi, although Prince Vladamir is supposed to be good.

I don’t know why I bought this. I don’t even like dates! O.o pokes tin
Processed dates, I can eat. Dates by themselves, no thank you. So why oh why is the first tea I see when first visiting 52teas.com a date flavoured one that makes me all yearning to try it? No, I don’t get it either.

The dry leaves have big pieces of coconut in them and they smell like… like… like… I don’t know actually. They have a VERY strong smell that’s making me sniff-taste the tin, and finally coming to the conclusion that the aroma that I’m picking up is coming from the label which I’ve cut off the pouch to label the tin with. The aroma is sticking to it so much that I can smell it as if it was right under my nose even though it’s lying an arm’s length away from me.
It smells sort of like perfume. Not artificial, just something that you could imagine being a note in a perfume. It’s got a sort of spicy-ish but not quite smell. It’s a sort of smell that’s easily recognisable, but I can’t really tell you what it smells like. Maybe this is just how dates smell? How should I know?

The brew is a dark amber colour and the aroma is the same as the leaves but a bit sweeter and has a note of raisins. That’s not surprising because dates have always sort of reminded me of giant raisins, only not as wrinkly.

Okay, the date flavoured tea for the person who doesn’t like dates. (WHAT was I THINKING???) Here goes!

It’s like… It tastes EXACTLY like it smells. It’s like liquid aroma with a dusty sort of note and weird aftertaste. I can’t really find the vanilla but I can definitely find a strong note of coconut. It sort of reminds me a bit of the honeysuckle flowers that I’ve got lying around that I’ve learned to be very careful with. I can drink it but… Another time I probably shouldn’t fall for a tea flavoured with something that I already KNOW I don’t like.

Srsly, what WAS I thinking? I hate to admit it, but this just didn’t work for me.

IF you like dates though, I feel pretty confident that you would like this a lot.

Well, I think it’s good to be adventurous, even if you’re pretty sure it won’t work out in the end. Date-flavored tea sounds strange, but I love dates…I can eat them like candy (which is more or less the function they serve for me anyway…so sweet…omnomnom). I’m sorry it wasn’t a good match for you, but now I’m curious for myself! Maybe sometime.

Jillian, I’d love to trade. I don’t have the original pouch anymore, because I’ve tinned it and I cut the label out for the tin, but it shouldn’t be a problem to figure out something else. I’ll have a look through your cupboard and send you an email with my address and the stuff I’d like to try. Then you can decide whether you’re willing to part with a sample of it. ;)

Sophistre, if you want in on the trade with Jillian, just let me know. :) I can send half to you and half to her, which should be about 25g each. You can email me your address at [email protected] if you want half. :)

I would love in on a trade, but I’m such a tea-newbie I am not quite sure that I have anything in my house that you a) haven’t had or b) would find worthwhile, haha. I did get that slew of Adagio samplers, though, so if you particularly like one of those I guess I have those to offer. I’m waiting for a Tea Guys order too…bunch of samples of herbals and whatnot.

Ack! Sorry Ang! The holidays are obviously a really bad time for my internet presence being a reliable thing. Go ahead and send it to Bethany, that’s fine. :D I have so many teas to try right now as it is that if she wants it that’s swell by me. I appreciate the offer anyway, we’ll do a trade sometime. :)

When the prosciutto-wrapped-date craze arrived in DC I thought I was in heaven. The combination of the salty ham with the earthy sweetness of the dates was elation on a toothpick. That said, I’m not sure that I’d like a date-flavored tea, either. I do find it hilarious that you ordered this even though you don’t like dates, though. Not to laugh at your misfortune, but…it’s kinda funny.

I took this one with me to work, because frankly it’s too boring really to drink at home. I have now found out that it’s not very suitable for work either. It’s difficult to brew it consistently and there are enough distractions at work that oversteeping happens every now and then. It’s not a very forgiving tea about that.

It’s got a bitter edge today because I forgot to take the leaves out in time. I don’t think I’ll buy this one again and I’m not sure I’m going to keep it here at work. I think maybe I’ll take it home again and bring something else. If I get around to it before the tin is empty, that is.

Love your comment! To bad the tea’s a dud. I find that plain ceylon needs something to make it a tad more interesting. It’s not like a malty assam that can really hold it’s own. Do you find the same to be true?

I don’t know, I think maybe as Ceylons go, it’s a good Ceylon. I may have come across some flavoured things from that shop that wasn’t a big hit with me, but I can’t really put a finger on the quality. I just don’t think I’m much of a plain Ceylon person. (The weird thing, though, the REALLY weird thing, is that I had an Uva Highlands Estate a few years ago and that one was awesome. So why is this so dull?)
Maybe it would help if I could make it consistently, but whenever I make it and look at my previous comments, I can never recognise my own thoughts.

I don’t have much experience with plain Assams, so I can’t really make the comparison there.

I read that teas are like fine wines. The taste from a single estate can change from year to year due to environmental elements. That’s why blending is so popular because it’s harder to identify those changes from year to year. So the overall taste is more consistent.

It was funny because I was thinking about the same thing last night when Lexitus and I had a wine made on a different grape than the wine we usually have. It was a good wine, but it was an enormous surprise when I tasted it the first time. It was SO not what I was expecting to get in my mouth. And then I thought maybe Steepster had been training me in tasting stuff more thorougly.

I think you’re right. For those tea lovers who prefer single estate teas to the blends, it must be frustrating because there are tons of blogs and reports about which vintage years a stellar for wines, but I haven’t come across hardly anything that provides continually new info about vintage years for estate teas. Maybe that’s something that can be created on steepster?

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Ang lives with Husband and two kitties, Charm and Luna, in a house not too far from Århus. Apart from drinking tea, she enjoys baking, especially biscuits, reading and jigsaw puzzles. She has recently acquired an interest in cross-stitch and started a rather large project. It remains to be seen whether she has actually bitten off more than she can chew…

Ang prefers black teas and the darker sorts of oolongs. She has to be in the mood for green and white, and she enjoys, but knows little to nothing about, pu-erh.

Her preferences with black teas are the Chinese ones, particularly from Fujian, but also Keemun and just about anything smoky. She occasionally enjoys Yunnans but they’re not favourites. She has taken some time to research Ceylon teas, complete with reference map, and has recently developed some interest in teas from Africa.

She is sceptical about Indian blacks as she generally finds them too astringent and too easy to get wrong. She doesn’t really care for Darjeelings at all. Very high-grown teas are often not favoured.

She likes flavoured teas as well, particularly fruit flavoured ones, but also had an obsession with finding the Perfect Vanilla Flavoured Black and can happily report that this reclusive beast has been spotted in a local teashop near where she works. Any and all vanilla flavoured teas are still highly attractive to her, though. Also nuts and caramel or toffee. Not so much chocolate. It’s a texture thing.

However, she thinks Earl Grey is generally kind of boring. Cinnamon and ginger are also not really a hit, and she’s not very fond of chais. Evil hibiscus is evil. Even in small amounts, and yes, Ang can usually detect hibiscus, mostly by way of the metallic flavour of blood it has.

Ang is not super impressed with rooibos or honeybush on their own. She doesn’t care for either, really, but when they are flavoured, they go usually go down a treat.

Ang used to have a Standard Panel of teas that she tried to always have on hand. She put a lot of thought into defining it and decided what should go on it. It was a great idea on paper, but in practise has been discovered to not really work as well.

Ang tries her best to make a post on Steepster several times a week. She tends to write her posts in advance in a word doc (The Queue) and posting from there. This, she feels, helps her to maintain regularity and stops her from making five posts in three days and then going three weeks without posting anything at all.

Angrboda is almost always open to swapping. Just ask her. Due to the nature of the queue, however, and the fact that it’s some 24 pages long at the moment, it may take a good while from she receives your parcel and until she actually posts about it.

Find Ang on…
Steam: Iarnvidia (Or Angrboda. She changed her display name and now is not certain which one to search for. She uses the same picture though, so she is easily recognised)
Goodreads: Angrboda
Livejournal: See website.
Dreamwidth: Ask her